Monday, May 28, 2007

First Camera Makes $775,000

Mike O'Donoghue writes to tell us that "the Susse Frères black softwood box (1839) went for 480,000€ Saturday at the Westlicht auction here in Vienna. That makes 576,000€ [about $775,000 or £390,400] with fees."

Being a "direct positive" technique (we could argue the subtleties of that terminology), Daguerreotypes were splendidly detailed--to the viewers of the day they had an infinite exactitude. And from the size of that camera, you can bet the plates were rather large--probably closer to what came to be called "whole plate" than not. So let's call it "large format" and, hmm, maybe 160 megapixels?